Confession (16 page)

‘You would attend English classes to assess my work better?’

‘My English is good Mademoiselle but not good enough. I have no finesse. Besides I am a teacher but what good is a teacher if he is not willing to learn?’

‘You would come and sit with the little ones, Monsieur? – ’

‘No! You would teach me here, in my study. And sometimes – I think – it might be that Monsieur Chapelle might join us. Yes, I am certain Monsieur Chapelle would be interested – ’

‘Forgive me, Sir, but I do not believe I know this gentleman?’

‘Monsieur Chapelle …’ here my teacher’s voice trailed off, the torrent of language silenced as if a rock had been thrown in to its path.

I waited. Silence filled the void. Monsieur Heger did not look at me, but I looked at him. His whole presence seemed changed, smaller somehow, diminished, disorientated.

‘He was my brother-in-law – my first wife – Marie-Josephine –’

‘I did not realize – ’

‘There is no secret,’ he said, ‘She died. I lost my son a few months afterwards. Life can be very harsh – ’

Now it was I who felt disorientated, disorientated and confused as if I had been thrown into the snowstorm outside for everything whirled about me, shifted, changed shape and grew dim. I was not arrogant enough to believe for one moment that I had known my teacher’s entire history, but the door he now opened to this secret world left me more than at a loss as to what to say next.

‘She died of cholera,’ Monsieur’s voice broke through my thoughts ‘She was dearly loved by everyone who knew her – my son, Gustave, died a few months later – I never felt such pain. Your father – ?’ Monsieur Heger said. ‘You told me once your mother died when you were no more than how old? Five? Six?’

‘Five-years old,’ I said. ‘You must think of your wife and son often?’

‘They went to a better place - ’

‘Sometimes,’ I faltered ‘I feel I am more suited to a life here on Earth than the one we are promised in Heaven – ’

Monsieur Heger nodded, ‘But these are the trials God sends us – ’

‘At least he has blessed you with happiness again,’ I said referring to Madame Heger and the four children.

‘Sometimes it is hard to acknowledge what it is that brings true happiness. Nature perhaps? Faith? Or may be it is children? Are you happy, Mademoiselle? I know you are studious and diligent but are you happy? – ’

‘I am content, Monsieur, yes,’ I said.

‘Content?’

‘I am glad to be here,’ I replied truthfully. ‘I am glad when I am working alongside a teacher whose mind exercises my own, who meets like with like, does not ridicule me but encourages and guides me – ’

Monsieur Heger nodded although my answer seemed neither to impress nor carry much weight with him.

‘And will you encourage this teacher?’ he said. ‘Will you teach him to speak and read English as he has requested of you for it would mean a great deal to him– he would be an excellent pupil, willing, studious –’

‘I do not doubt that he would,’ I said, breaking into a smile.

‘So I do make you happy?’

‘I did not know that was the question.’

Monsieur’s dark eyes scanned the room – eyes that I now understood had gazed into those of more than one woman’s, eyes that had mapped a wider emotional landscape than even he was
prepared to admit, eyes that now came to rest directly on mine.

III

Because Monsieur had expressed a desire for me to dissect Millevoye’s
‘
Fall of the Leaves’ – that is what I set out to do for my next devoirs although I found the subject difficult and my treatment of it clumsy rather than insightful. Nor was working in the schoolroom easy for, despite two large black stoves being lit at either end of the room, it remained cold. Everyone found it uncomfortable, Vertue complained bitterly from one end of the day to the next, her companions likewise. They all huddled around the stoves every evening, all except moon-faced Marianne Wilke who – for some reason unknown to me – liked to sit in close proximity to my desk where she would smile quietly to herself or rock gently backwards and forwards staring in to mid air.

As for myself my bones were cold, my blood was cold – the only thing that warmed me was my desire to present Monsieur with a well-reasoned essay that the two of us might discuss further during our next lesson.

‘What impression,’ I began, ‘does one receive on reading Millvoye’s “The Fall of the

Leaves”.’

What indeed? It was such a melancholy piece, evocative of so many walks taken through so many woods, reminiscent of so much that was transitory, heralding nothing more or less final than death.

‘It is no simple task to shed light on this question in a single answer,’ I continued, ‘because one does not always gain the same impression. On first reading the piece, the effect is vivid; the second time, and forever after, mournful.’

My hand, numbed by the cold, scrawled out the words as black ink spattered across the page. ‘Sorrowful,’ I wrote and then stared at the word as if a mythical creature had wandered into my sightline, something so elusive and fanciful that had I lived a million years and travelled to the ends of the earth I would never have caught a glimpse of it, so alien was the concept.

After teaching the Wheelwright children the previous year, our lessons resumed three times a week. Letitia – the eldest of the Wheelwright children, Fanny and Sarah-Ann attended the Pensionat for these sessions and although all were at different levels of competency when it came to History and literature, I found it easy to tailor each lesson to each individual girl.

The same could not be said for the classes I gave the pupils who boarded at the Pensionat. Instructing them on the finer points of the English language was onerous – most particularly because they found it impossible to pronounce the words correctly or with any degree of finesse. For hours every day I had them repeat sentences and phrases of my choosing in an attempt to accustom their dull sensibilities to the rhythm and stresses of my native tongue. Teaching however did not suit me one whit for I did not recognize myself in the role. Perhaps that was the most difficult part of the exercise. It was not me who marched up and down between the desks, or who stood on the teacher’s dais day after day rapping her knuckles against the wood. That woman was an imposter; a tame, duty-bound dullard who existed but whose soul did not live.

There was only one lesson each week to which I looked forward with any clarity of vision or degree of pleasure. Monsieur had arranged for himself and Paul Chapelle to study with me every Friday for two hours after diner.

Paul Chapelle was a pleasant gentleman, out-going though not blessed with the gift or level
of learning enjoyed by his former brother-in-law. Nor were the two men alike physically – Monsieur Chapelle being tall, blond and whiskery whereas Monsieur Heger was stocky, dark and clean-shaven.

Nevertheless, unalike as they were, they were both more competent students than I was a teacher. Give me a thousand unruly children every day, I would not feel so flustered as I did standing before those two gentlemen.

‘It is a great pleasure to meet you at last!’ exclaimed Monsieur Chapelle on this our first meeting. ‘Monsieur Heger speaks very highly of you – ’

‘And of you too, Sir – ’ I asserted.

‘He did no such thing! He described me as a miscreant and a rascal did he not?’

‘Not!’ I protested.

‘Well, you do right to protect my friend – ’

‘Protect?’ I said, laughing.

‘It is I who needs protecting, Paul,’ interjected Monsieur Heger. ‘This woman is dangerous, opinionated, outspoken – ’

‘All fine qualities in a woman I think – ’

‘You have forgotten to mention officious, Monsieur,’ I said pointing to the blackboard and to the two chairs that had been drawn up in front of it. ‘Shall we make a start perhaps?’

Obediently my two pupils seated themselves at their desks after which I began to read to them from Sir Walter Scott’s ‘Lady of the Lake’. When I had finished we discussed Scott’s style. Monsieur Chapelle – glancing first at Monsieur Heger and afterwards at me, said he thought the extract heroic, while Monsieur Heger commended Scott upon his fine descriptive powers.

‘In the second verse,’ Monsieur Heger said, ‘where he describes
le daguet et la lune
et
les monts
, the picture is complete, n’est pas?’

‘In English please?’ I said.

‘Yes!’ reasoned Monsieur Chapelle – clapping his hands together, obviously pleased that his friend had been caught out so early on in our venture. ‘In Engleesh, Constantin!’

Constantin Heger looked at me then narrowed his eyes. ‘The moon,’ he said slowly ‘and the mountains and the – ’

‘Stag?’ I said.

‘Stag,’ he said, slowly.

‘The stag at eve had drunk his fill,’ I quoted. ‘You will both agree, I hope, that Scott is a master scene-builder. Notice how he draws the reader into the landscape. Here he is describing a stag hunt,’ I continued emphasising the word ‘stag’ as I caught Monsieur’s eye. ‘Scott moves from the general to the particular – “The dewdrops from his flanks he shook” and back again within a few lines to the general landscape:

“A moment gazed adown the dale,

A moment snuffed the tainted gale,

A moment listened to the cry,

That thickened as the chase drew nigh”.’

‘Do you have many stags in England?’ interrupted Monsieur Chapelle.

‘They are more apparent in Scotland, Monsieur,’ I said explaining how Scott was in fact born north of the border in Edinburgh.’

Monsieur Heger laughed. ‘You see, Paul, how our young teacher tries to catch us out! We ask her to teach us English and instead she tricks us into learning the Scottish!’

‘Insubordination Sir, will not advance your cause!’ I retaliated smiling for I was enjoying speaking my native language, indeed felt more in control and could demonstrate my skills all the better whilst at the same time teasing Monsieur Heger for now he was my pupil and I, his teacher.

He took it well.

I reprimanded him and in turn he feigned indignation.

I ignored him and he played the fool until I reprimanded him again.

‘Bravo!’ cried Monsieur Chapelle. ‘You have met your match here, Sir, I think!’

‘Met my match!’ remonstrated Monsieur Heger. ‘Do you know, when this lady first stepped in to my study a year ago, she and her sister could hardly speak a word of French
or
English. Not now! Nowadays she is quite the….the… babillard.’

‘In
English
!’ I rapped my hand against the table.

‘I have created the teerant!’ cried Monsieur Heger. – ‘You see what we are up against, Paul?’

‘Not
teerant
,’ I said. ‘The word is
tyrant.
’

‘Teeyrant?’

‘Ti – rant.’

‘Now you see she is laughing at me –’

‘Well I think she is splendid,’ replied his compatriot.

‘Well spoken, Monsieur Chapelle,’ I replied.

‘Well spoken,’ mimicked Monsieur Heger.

From ‘The Lady of the Lake’ we moved on to reading passages from Scott’s biography of

Napoleon, a book I knew my professor would take particular pleasure in chiefly because

Scott’s treatise reflected precisely Monsieur’s own passions and prejudices, single-
mindedness and most of all desire for truth.

Two hours flew by. At eight o’clock the lesson drew to a close and Monsieur Heger asked me to join him and Monsieur Chapelle in Monsieur and Madame’s sitting room but I declined. I was exhilarated but also exhausted and returned to the schoolroom instead where I sat down to write a short letter to Mary Dixon, Mary Taylor’s cousin, who had recently joined her father & brothers in Brussels and who had asked me to join her for tea later that week.

‘My dear Miss Dixon,’ I wrote. ‘I find I cannot come on Thursday; when I asked Mde Heger’s leave, she said she had formed a prior engagement for me to go with herself and Mr. Heger. However I will come on Friday afternoon at two p.m. if that hour will suit you – I must be back by four as M. Heger will want his English lesson after dinner.’

The letter written I retired upstairs. If there were a happier soul in the whole of Christendom, I doubt it. At my right hand, or so I thought then, lay pleasures for evermore.
⁴

IV

The prior engagement I had written of to Mary Dixon had come as a surprise to me for up until that time Madame Heger had not seen fit to include me in any social engagement either she or her husband attended. On this occasion however – the opening of an exhibition at the Salon de Brussels – she had thought very kindly to invite me.

On the way over in the carriage Monsieur and Madame sat side-by-side. They made an interesting couple, glancing at each other every now and then, a vague smile playing across her lips while he tended towards smiling with his eyes. Is this how they looked at each other when they were in private? For a moment I think I understood their relationship then the moment passed, ebbed away like flotsom on a high tide.

I stared out of the window, trying to remain as unobtrusive as possible. It was still cold outside but a few rays of sunshine managed to escape from behind scraps of dark cloud dashing the street with pebbles of light.

Occasionally Monsieur leant forwards to point out a building he thought might be of interest, in particular the Maison du Roi and the Palace de Justice – the gates of which were flanked on either side by stone lions.

Monsieur enquired if I had any preferences when it came to painting or sculpture, had I seen any exhibitions in England perhaps? I found it difficult to answer. When I was in private with Monsieur or alone with Madame I could formulate any number of replies to their enquiries and be reasonably eloquent in the process, but in their joint presence, language deserted me.

Nor did the situation improve once we had entered the gallery however I did manage to remark on how handsome I found the building.

The paintings on show were for the most part landscapes but there were also a fair number of small, Flemish interiors – one of a young woman reading a book and another of a young woman seated in front of an open window. The latter caught my attention, the way light illumined the model’s face, the way she sat with her hands clasped in front of her, gazing steadily up and out at the viewer with eyes so bright it was hard to believe this girl was dead. She was speaking to me across a span of two centuries, smiling at me as if we shared a common humour. She could hear birdsong from outside the window yet she kept her head perfectly still because the artist would have demanded she did so. Perhaps they talked while he painted or perhaps he insisted upon silence. His gift was to distil everything that the girl was into that one small canvas. Had he succeeded? I believe that he had; simply, efficiently, skilfully.